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It saddens me that you are requiring your students to
unsubscribe, and your comment that, if they resubscribe,
it won't be as part of a course at the university suggests
that you intend to oppose the use of this resource. The tone
of the paragraph makes it sound like you are depriving
your students of a resource to punish a third party.
Please don't take any of this as a defense of those who
jumped all over your students unfairly.
The educational use of the net is challenging, and problems
with a first effort shouldn't stop you.
An assignment to subscribe to a list is a great idea, and
inviting, even encouraging you students to post any relevant
questions they might have is also. Making posting a part of the
assignment raises some problems, though. One should
post only when one has a question or comment, not to
meet a deadline.
Posting entails a certain risk. Anytime you speak up in
an uncontrolled (or lightly controlled) forum, you face the
possibility of having your statement attacked, often
unfairly.
You also face criticism that may be meant positively
but expressed more harshly than the author intended.
As professionals, we are often blunt in our editing. We
usually critique the work of other professionals who know not
to take it personally, and have the confidence of experience.
Are your students up to it? That's a decision you and
your students have to make.
May I make some observations about your message?
The subject line has some problems: the word "important",
the use of caps, and the multiple exclamation points are
red flags indicating that a post is unlikely to be good,
but may be amusing.
The argument that net etiquette is not a consistent and
established set of rules is reasonable in itself, but has been
used so often by flagrant and unrepentant abusers of the
net (particularly in the Green Card case) as to be a sad
clichi.
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From: stuckert[SMTP:stuckert -at- LUCY -dot- FINDLAY -dot- EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 1995 2:04 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list TEC
Subject: Findlay Student Messages: IMPORTANT!!
I am the instructor at the University of Findlay who asked that students
in an
introductory tech comm course subscribe and post messages to the TECHWR-L
discussion group.
